(a) Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention is generally related to wheels, and more particular to wheels with enhanced reliability when rotating around their axles.
(b) Description of the Prior Art
For a conventional wheel device usually installed under a piece of furniture or luggage, the wheel device usually contains a base, an axle running through the base, and wheel members joined to the axle's two ends. To ensure that the wheel members do not fall off from the axle, as shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, the axle 51 has at least a ring notch 511 and, correspondingly, a wheel member 52 has a flange 521 to embed into the ring notch 511. As such, the wheel member 52 is positioned at a specific location and is prevented from sliding along the axle 51.
However, conventionally the wheel member 52 is made of a plastic material and is produced by injection molding. The flange 521 cannot be too high or too wide due to production limitation and, therefore, the flange 521 is usually smaller than 0.5 mm in height and 1 mm in width. During assembly, brute force is usually applied to drive the wheel member 51 onto the axle 51 and the flange 521 into the ring notch 511. The small flange 521 often gets damaged in the process and the interlocking between the damaged flange 521 and the ring notch 511 is easy to break off. The wheel member 52 as such can slide axially along the axle 51 or even fall off when the wheel device is operated.